


Monsters Under The Bed.

by SunshineScorpius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Bullies, Established Relationship, Grief, M/M, Nightmares, albus is bullied, finding love and comfort in one another, mild emotional upset warning, recovering from trauma, scorpius has a nightmare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineScorpius/pseuds/SunshineScorpius
Summary: Albus is a victim of bullying, and Scorpius' nightmares continue to haunt him in the night. After all, we all have monsters.





	Monsters Under The Bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little bit of drabble for you all.  
> Quite violent depictions of bullying and vivid depictions of grief, stay safe kids xoxo

Albus ran through the halls as fast as his legs could possibly take him. It wasn’t fast enough though, and the people chasing him caught up and knocked him off his feet. He skidded to the floor, the friction ripping through his school trousers, burning his now bare knees. His hands colliding harshly with the concrete floor stopped his face from smashing against it, luckily.

He was so close to the common room. Just a few more steps and he would have made it.

He failed.

One of the boys kicked his stomach, causing him to splutter and collapse to the floor on his side. He choked on his own breath, struggling to get air into his lungs.

He could hear them spitting insults, but he couldn’t be bothered to tune in and listen. He was better off not knowing what they were saying.

Another shoe collided with his stomach, then another with his face. For wizards, they sure liked to use their fists. Even if Albus could reach his wand right now, he wasn’t a good enough wizard to fend them all off. He would have to wait this out and hope they didn’t do too much damage. Usually, Scorpius could heal him, and he hoped he would be able to now.

The world was spinning around him, dizziness overtaking him. All that he could register was pain and laughter, but nothing was significant enough to stand out. There was a vague voice shouting louder than the other boys and they stopped. The pain tingled throughout him, but nothing new came towards him.

There was a hand on his shoulder, and the soft voice of his brother saying his name.

Albus wiped his nose, wincing in agony and seeing his sleeve coming away covered in blood.

“Al?” James’ voice finally cuts through his haze.

“Leave me alone, Jamie,” he replied. He didn’t have enough energy to put bite to his tone, but James still seemed taken aback.

“But, Al, are you-”

“Leave me alone.” He spoke harsher this time, pulling his shoulder from James and standing on wobbly legs. Albus walked towards the Slytherin common room, leaving behind a stunned James. He called after him. Albus ignored him and muttered the password, wanting nothing more than to collapse into Scorpius’ arms.

Albus trudged through the common room, ignoring the stares other students were giving him. No one came to aid him. They just let a bloodied boy walk past, staring at him like he was a lion in a snake pit. No one cared enough to check he was okay. No one ever cared enough. Albus was used to it by now. It was fine. He didn’t need anyone. Only Scorpius.

And Scorpius he had.

Scorpius cared enough.

The other boy was sat crossed legged on his bed when Albus entered, one quill tucked behind his ear and another in his hand as he furiously wrote an essay no doubt due in two weeks. With how fast he was writing, one would assume it was due tomorrow. He never heard Albus come in – it was often like that. Scorpius could get so wrapped up in his own head that most the time he never noticed the world going on around him. Albus thought it was a defence mechanism, a form of escape from the cruel world they lived in.

“Scorp,” Albus spoke from the doorway, causing the other boy to look up. His glasses fell askew from the rapid movement. He had a smile on his face that dropped the moment he saw Albus, covered in blood and hunched over slightly from the pain in his ribs. Albus had never seen Scorpius move so fast before.

“What happened?” He asked, reaching him in seconds and guiding him away from the door. Albus fell into him, all his energy disappearing now he had someone to lean on. Scorpius lowered him into a sitting position on Albus’ bed, with his back against the headboard. Albus tried not to show how much pain he was really in.

“The usual,” he mumbled, jaw aching from speech. Scorpius sighed and looked at him with a pitiful look. Albus wished he wouldn’t, though he knew he looked at Scorpius the same way when the situation was reversed. It was always a big game of ‘guess who would get beat the shit out of today’. Scorpius had been hiding in their dorm all day between classes after an incident earlier in the week, which meant Albus was their chosen victim.

“Where does it hurt?” Scorpius asked as he stood to retrieve his wand from his bed.

“Everywhere,” Albus only half-joked.

“Seriously,” Scorpius scolded, though his voice was gentle. He had disappeared into the bathroom where he emerged with a dampened cloth and sat back down on the edge of Albus’ bed.

“Face, stomach, knees and my ankle a little bit.”

Scorpius nodded slowly. His hands went to the bottom of Albus’ school jumper, where he bundled the fabric into his fists and muttered, “arms up.” Albus obliged. Scorpius carefully peeled his bloodied jumper off him, cautious when going over his head to avoid his possible broken nose and jaw. Once discarded on the floor, Scorpius went to undoing his green-and-silver tie. Normally he would loosen it and slip it over his head, but Scorpius fully untied it this time to avoid any unnecessary pain. Albus would have to bug him tomorrow to re-tie it again.

The tie joined the jumper and Scorpius’ nimble fingers worked on the buttons of his shirt. This wasn’t as bloodied, but there were drops on his collar that the jumper hadn’t caught.

“If you wanted me to take my shirt off, you could have just asked,” Albus teased, smiling despite the ache in his nose. Scorpius chuckled but shook his head, flicking his eyes up briefly from the shirt to Albus’ eyes. His smile dropped upon seeing the state of him, as though for a moment he’d forgotten why they were there.

“Are you in pain?” He asked. Albus could tell he was speaking through the lump in his throat.

“No,” he lied.

“Don’t lie to me, Albus Potter.” _Damn._ There was no getting passed him.

“A little,” he admitted. Scorpius nodded, finishing opening his shirt. He never took it off but pushed the sides away to reveal Albus’ bare stomach. It didn’t _look_ as bad as it felt.

Scorpius got to work, mumbling about Albus’ injuries as he went along. He didn’t think his ribs were broken and usually when Scorpius thought something, it was right. He patched his knees up that had split open from the concrete and conjured an ice bag for his ankle, which he propped up on a pillow. His jaw wasn’t broken either, but Scorpius said it would bruise pretty badly. He fixed his nose with a quick spell and worked on cleaning the blood away the muggle way. He said it was slightly more thorough, but Albus thought it was just an excuse be close to him a little bit longer.

Not that he ever needed an excuse.

He finished off with a quick cleaning spell anyway – _“for extra effectiveness”_ – and when he was done, booped Albus gently on the nose.

“All fixed,” he said through a tight-lipped smile.

He still ached a little bit – Scorpius was not a miracle worker. A fifteen-year-old should not even be able to perform the spells he can, let alone perfectly. He was working on them and got better every time. Albus was the perfect dummy after all. But, they always left behind an achy pain that came with the end of healing naturally. Albus didn’t mind it, as long as there was no need for a trip to the hospital wing.

Albus shuffled onto his knees and pulled Scorpius in for a hug, burying his head in his neck. This is what he’d wanted the entire time. He didn’t care about the injuries, he just wanted Scorpius to hold him and never let go. He was sure that if he asked him to, Scorpius would stay in this hug for the rest of their lives – which would be fairly short if they never moved, people needed to eat and drink after all.

“Thank you,” Albus muttered into his neck. Scorpius squeezed him tighter in response.

Albus wasn’t sure at what point he started crying, he just knew that he started soaking Scorpius’ neck in tears and sniffling – a lot. Albus hated crying, which is why he tried to avoid it – he left that to Scorpius. There was something about this, though, that made him sob so much a waterfall would be jealous. Scorpius – ever the person who knows how to handle him – never said a word. Instead, he held him tight and let him get it all out. He knew Albus wouldn’t want to talk about it, so he never pushed him.

It was moments like this that reminded Albus why he had fallen in love with him in the first place.

When Albus never let go – it was a seriously long hug at this point - Scorpius, still holding him, lowered them both down onto the bed. He flicked the curtains closed with his wand, set it aside and pulled the duvet over them both. All with one arm still around Albus as Albus adjusted to the new position.

They fell asleep like that, Scorpius lying on his back with Albus’ half thrown over him, his head on Scorpius’ chest still in their school uniform. Scorpius peppered the crown of Albus’ head with kisses until he fell asleep, Scorpius following shortly after.

 

* * *

 

 

Scorpius woke in a cold sweat with laboured breathing. He jolted slightly but was kept pinned to the bed due to Albus’ body weight on top of him. He closed his eyes a moment to try and focus his breathing, but the memories of his most recent nightmare swirled behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes and tried to shuffle from underneath Albus, careful not to wake him up.

Once free, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

He could still hear his mum calling out for him, begging him to save her and protect her from the curse. He still saw the way the colour drained from her face, the way the light faded from her eyes in those last moments. Her limp hand held out to his as the last of her breath was knocked from her weak body. Then finally, she disappeared. Gone. Never to be seen again. And Scorpius was left with an aching hole in his heart that hadn’t healed even two years later. Scorpius was left with nightmares of her death that would never fade.

In fact, they seemed to get worse. Except now they were mixed with the other tragic events of his fourth year. Knowing that no matter what happened, no matter what universe he was in, his mum was always dead. Every time. In every universe he hadn’t managed to save her.

Scorpius sighed into his hands loudly and pulled his knees up to his chest. He hugged himself, rocking back and forth slightly as though it would shake the thoughts of her from his head. Once that never worked, he opened the curtains slightly and grabbed a picture of his mum he kept on Albus’ bed-side table. Ever since he started sleeping over here more often, he wanted to make sure his mum was always at hand.

“I’m sorry I let you down, mum,” he whispered, stroking over her picture. She was laughing and picking Scorpius up on a trip they took to the beach when he was younger. They used to go every year for his fathers’ birthday until she got too sick. Scorpius hadn’t been to the beach now for five years.

“Scorpy?” Albus’ mumbled voice spoke, groggy from his slumber. Scorpius internally cursed himself for waking him.

“I’m fine, go back to sleep,” he whispered, not looking away from the photo in his hand.

Albus did not go back to sleep. Instead, he sat up and wrapped an arm around his waist, settling his chin on his shoulder and looked down at the picture in Scorpius’ hands. Albus was quiet for a long time, letting Scorpius process his thoughts and calm himself down. Scorpius calmed nearly instantly when the warmth of Albus’ body enveloped his previous shivering form.

“You didn’t let her down,” he finally said. Scorpius wished he hadn’t heard him.

“I couldn’t save her,” Scorpius replied, a lump forming in his throat. Two years and everything still hurt like hell.

“You were thirteen, it was never your job to save her.”

A part of him knew this. He knew his mum had never asked him to save her, that was all in his head. His mum would never put such a burden on her son. But Scorpius had promised her. At nine-years-old when he finally understood the ins-and-outs of the curse, he promised he would find a cure. At fifteen, the memory of her dying was still fresh in his mind.

 

_“Mummy,” he spoke, rushing to her side. She was holding a hand out for him, but it was limp on the bed rather than in the air. There was no energy left in her._

_“Scorpius, wait outside,” his father said, but there was no way he was leaving this room now. He knew it was happening and he would be by her side the entire time._

_“Mummy, you can’t,” he sobbed, thick tears streaming down his face. His mother never cried. She had long accepted her fate. She had cried many tears in the past knowing she was leaving behind her boys. “I haven’t found it yet, mum, I need more time,” he begged, gripping onto her hand for dear life._

_“You’ve done everything you could have done, my little prince. We just ran out of time,” she squeezed his hand. Another loud sob erupted from him. His knees buckled beneath him and he fell onto the bed, half-hugging her legs. He half expected his father to drag him from the room, but instead Draco came around and sat behind him. He pulled Scorpius up and into a hug, letting him sob into his chest._

_“I love you, mummy,” Scorpius said. The last words he ever spoke to her. He managed to take one last look at her as she smiled through the pain._

_“I love you too, Scorpius. I love you both.” Those were the last words ever spoken by Astoria Malfoy._

“I miss her,” Scorpius cried, letting the tears fall down his cheeks. Albus pulled him into a lying down position and took the picture frame from his grip, placing it back on the bedside table. His enveloped him in an awkward lying down hug and stroked his hair as Scorpius sobbed into his chest. It was rare that he’d cry over his mum these days. The ache was always present, the pain never fading, but the tears were less and less each day.

There were some moments he’d be reminded of her. Little things like the colour of her eyes in Albus’ morning coffee. The smell of lavender as he walked past the herbology greenhouses. The stars in the astronomy tower. The abandoned swing in his back garden. A piano playing her favourite song. The sweets in Honeydukes. Ice-cream. Tea. Cakes. The colour purple. The sun. The moon. The birds singing in the morning. His uniform neatly pressed. His scarf tied differently to everyone else’s because that’s how his mother tied it for him.

All these little things reminded him of her every single day. She was an ache he can’t ignore. A shadow that remains even when the suns gone down and the moon comes to play. A ghost in the walls of his heart. She was there. Forever and always.

Scorpius held onto Albus tighter even as the tears subsided. Albus was a comfort, the presence of someone good in a world that held so many evils. A world full of people like Voldemort and his daughter, of Bellatrix LeStrange and Lucius Malfoy, of Peter Pettigrew and Gellert Grindelwald. There were people like that out in this world, and then there was Albus Potter and Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, Minerva McGonagall and Ginny Potter. Good people, to only name a few. It was because of those people that Scorpius could hold Albus now. It was because of those people that Albus existed in the first place.

His mum may have been gone, and he may have lost her no matter the universe, but it’s nice to know there will always be this version of themselves waiting for them to come home.

“I can hear your brain thinking,” Albus mumbled into his hair. They chuckled together, muffled by the other person's body.

“I’m thinking about us. About how lucky we are to have each other, even if it means I can’t have her,” Scorpius replied. He’d never been one for hiding his thoughts. Albus preferred not to burden others, though Scorpius insisted he wasn’t a burden.

“Despite everything we’ve been through, the monsters we’ve encountered, we have each other,” Albus confirmed. They pulled away slightly, enough to look into each other’s eyes. It was dark, and Scorpius could barely make out the emerald, but he had it committed to memory. There were worlds inside Albus’ eyes.

“Absolute monsters only exist under the bed.”

It was true. People like Delphi weren’t monsters. They were human. Making human mistakes with catastrophic consequences. Real monsters – the ones seen in nightmares and children’s story books – existed inside people’s heads, existed under the bed and in the closet. Existed away from human eyes, only to come and play when the world got dark.

Albus kissed him gently, a hand running through his hair. His lip was still cut and bruised from his earlier interaction with their bullies. Scorpius ran a thumb over his cheek and kissed it gently, willing away the bruise that had formed in the night. Those bullies may have hurt Albus, but they, too, were only human.

Bullies are not monsters. Curses are not monsters. Ghosts are not monsters. Prisoners in Azkaban are not monsters. Werewolves are not monsters, and neither are vampires. Monsters don’t exist. Not even in a world of magic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Kudos and Comments always welcome as usual! Feedback of any kind is accepted.  
> Twitter: @cryingbcbooks  
> Tumblr: @anarcherboyandawarlock


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